Jon Buice granted parole

Jon Buice, serving 45 years in state prison for the 1991 gay-bashing murder of Houston banker Paul Broussard, has been granted parole.

Buice, 42, was one of 10 youths from The Woodlands who assaulted Broussard, 27, in the Montrose nightclub district.

Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles spokesman Raymond Estrada said a three-member paroles committee Friday voted 2-0 to grant parole. The vote was made by the department’s Angleton office, Estrada said, noting that cases occasionally are assigned to offices with no direct connection to the case.

Buice previously was granted parole in 2011, but subsequent protests led to its reversal.

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Estrada said factors leading to the parole included Buice’s “satisfactory institutional adjustment,” including no major disciplinary cases, loss of time or demotion in classification since his last review. Buice also had successfully completed one or more vocational or academic programs while confined. Lastly, Estrada said, Buice was only 17 at the time of his crime.

He will remain under parole supervision until April 9, 2037.

I said my piece on this in 2013. Rereading what I wrote then, I still feel that way. Reasonable people can disagree in good faith on the role of punishment in our criminal justice system, and how much of it is enough, in general and in a particular case. In this particular case, I don’t think there was enough. The Press and Lisa Gray have more.